


One for You, One for Me

by agent_orange



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: 5 Things, M/M, Minor Character Death, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 13:50:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1746944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_orange/pseuds/agent_orange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things Brad knows about Nate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One for You, One for Me

1.

Despite how it might seem in Reporter's book, Nate doesn't actually swear that much. He chalks it up to four years at a Catholic prep school; Brad thinks it's because, deep down, Nate never completely lost all traces of the good boy he was in college.

Whatever the case, Nate riled up doesn't always end with cursing. He can stub his toe or burn the stir-fry or have to rewrite a proposal and still not lose his cool. He gets frustrated, sure, but he doesn't get mad enough to say more than an occasional _shit!_

"I always feel guilty," he explains. "Like Mr. Doyle's going to pull me aside and punish me for using 'language unbefitting a fine, upstanding man such as yourself.'"

To Brad, it seems ridiculous: a Recon Marine, even a retired officer, who doesn't curse like it's his job. The fact that Brad could respect the hell out of someone who seems so innocent and pure is even more shocking.

 Of course, he's anything _but_ innocent and pure, and Brad knows this. Knows the death and destruction Nate's seen, knows that Nate's pansy-ass, liberal friends from college would be horrified by some of the things he's done. By the fact that he's killed.

In a cheap Australian hotel room, Brad had first learned just how wrong people were when they called Nate an altar boy. They were drunk, still trying to process what happened in Iraq, and Brad had made the first move. He knew Nate wouldn't, as an officer, even if that was only for a little while longer. He'd taken his time with Nate, seeing what worked and what didn't, smiling when Nate finally let loose.

Now, Nate runs his mouth when they're in bed. (Or more accurately, he runs his mouth when they're fucking or messing around, since the bathroom, the kitchen, and the den are all fairly popular spots for that.) Brad will be taking his sweet getting Nate ready, or just jerking him off; he does like it, on occasion, when Nate squirms and shifts with impatience.

"Hurry up and fuck me," he says, agitation makes his words urgent. "I swear to God, Brad, if you..." when Brad slides a wet finger into Nate, though, it makes his breath catch, words slipping from his grasp.

For a few minutes, the only sounds Nate makes are the moans he tries to stifle by pushing his face into a pillow.

"Stop it," Brad says, stroking his clean hand from Nate's shoulder down to his back. "I want to hear you." He doesn't say _don't hide_ , but they both know he means it.

Nate's head jerks almost imperceptibly, a nod, and he raises it, breathing harshly as Brad goes from one finger to two and then three. "Shit," he chokes. Without seeing Nate's face, it's still a little hard for Brad to tell if he's using too much pressure. But then he urges _keep going_ , though Brad crooks his fingers more, just to be sure.

When Brad slides into him, Nate spews filth for a solid minute until Brad bites his shoulder.

"You sound like my least favorite socially inept monoglot. I can't do this if I'm thinking about him."  

"Fuck you," Nate says, but he's smiling.

2.

It wasn't until Brad read _One Bullet Away_ that he found out Nate had wanted to be a doctor. The idea of Nate failing at anything (especially an academic class) is laughable, and Brad vows to ask him what the fuck happened. It makes sense, though—the profession, not the failing—and it's so easy for Brad to imagine Nate as a doctor without even trying. It's easy to remember the times in Iraq when Nate was so tired it looked like might just collapse right there, and change the setting to someone's apartment, where Nate's cramming for a huge exam with a bunch of equally brilliant med students, memorizing bones and infectious diseases.

He bets Nate would making an amazing doctor, especially since caring too much is far less dangerous in a field where your job is to heal people.

"Tell me about it?" Brad asks one night. They're on the couch, Nate between Brad's legs, his back pressed to Brad's chest. "Why you wanted to be a doctor. Classes at Dartmouth. All that touchy-feely 'finding yourself' bullshit."

Nate laughs, the feeling vibrating right through to Brad. "My parents didn't push me into it," he says. "That's not why I ended up failing the class and joining the Marines. My mom didn't want me to be, like, a wealthy criminal defense attorney or some big-shot CEO, but they wanted me to get the best education they could afford. When I ended up telling them I wanted to be a doctor, though, they were happy. They were all about the 'helping people' and 'making a difference', though they weren't too happy about the cost."

"I'm sure Harvard would've loved you even if you didn't invade a country to protect their communist lifestyle," Brad quips, settling his palm on Nate's belly. "But you failed the class. Did someone have a pre-quarter-life identity crisis?"

"Aren't you clever," Nate says, and shrugs. "I was bored. I could've passed, if I had really wanted to, but the material wasn't as interesting as I thought it'd be. And..." he shifts a little uncomfortably, like he's remembering something he's not particularly interested in sharing. "I was discovering myself, or whatever."  

"Right," Brad chuckles. "Just what your parents were paying for. Was he worth it?" They haven't talked about this much—at least, not in explicit detail—but Brad doesn't mind pushing a little.

"Yeah," Nate says, after a moment of hesitation.

"Good." Brad tucks his chin into the dip of Nate's shoulder. "What kind of doctor would you have been, do you think? Not internal medicine, I hope. Those pussies don't do shit."

Nate laughs again. "Definitely not internal medicine," he says. "Neurosurgery, maybe, or pediatrics." The first one isn't a bad choice—precise, challenging—though it's not trauma, which obviously sounds fascinating to Brad. Dealing with whiny brats all day, on the other hand, well...Nate probably would've been great at it, actually, but just thinking about it makes Brad's head hurt.

"You would've been great," Brad says, even though he's glad Nate didn't go that route. They wouldn't have met if he did.

Sometimes, though, if Brad manages to get a minor PT injury, he asks Nate about it. "Let me guess: your expert opinion's that I've got a month to live," he says, grinning.

"I got through a year and a half of science pre-reqs, Brad," Nate explains. His lips quirk. "I'm not a doctor," he says. "I just play one on TV. You're not going to die. ...Well, probably not." He ducks Brad's playful slap to the arm. "A strain's my guess. Stress injury. Ice it, wrap it, don't push yourself too hard, which I know is impossible for you. And see a real fucking doctor if it doesn't clear up in a week or so."

"But you're so much more fun," Brad counters. "Can't I at least show you where it hurts?"

3.

It's shocking how uncoordinated Nate is. Fitness test to qualify for OCS? No problem. BRC? Totally doable. Dive school, jump school, mountain warfare training? He's up for it. But apparently there's a reason he excelled at cross-country and cycling—the lack of coordination required.

Two of the light bulbs in the dining room are out, and Nate's already fiddling with it, so Brad tosses him a box of them, expecting Nate to catch it without difficulty.

Amber-colored glass shatters, landing all over the table and around the legs. Stupidly, Nate's barefoot, and tries to step around it. That doesn't work, and he ends up with shards in his feet, blood dripping all over the table.

"Don't fucking tell me I have to fucking carry you in your own goddamn house," Brad says. He doesn't look as amused as he normally does when Nate manages to injure himself, which makes Nate wonder how deep the glass is and how Brad could know anything without looking.

But he hauls Nate into the kitchen anyway, sitting him on the table and rummaging through the medicine cabinet for supplies. The tweezers look so tiny in his hand, tips scraping the soles of Nate's feet as Brad picks out shard after shard of glass. Nate does his best to keep still and not wince, but he has to squeeze Brad's shoulder every so often when the smaller fragments refuse to budge.

There are drops of blood directly under Nate's feet by the time Brad finishes that Nate'll have to clean up.

"I'm not done with you," Brad says, gently pushing Nate back down. He wipes Nate's skin with an alcohol-soaked cotton swab, dabs Neosporin over the wounds, and wraps his feet in gauze. "Frankly, Nate, I'm embarrassed. Not one injury in combat, and then you come home and let this happen? I think you really are turning into a POG."

"And here I thought you'd be more embarrassed to have a 'useless officer' fuck you."

"Completely useless," Brad agrees, swatting Nate's ass. "Go get changed. I heard about this new restaurant—Mexican/sushi."

4.

Brad returns from his two-year exchange with the Royal Marines to find that not only have Nate and Ray become friends, they're apparently pretty close. ( _Just_ as friends, that is. Otherwise Brad would bury Ray's body so deep no one would ever find it.)

At first, Brad hates it. Even after the initial shock wears off, it takes some getting used to. It sounds like a fucking terrible sitcom: Brad's best friend and boyfriend team up to piss him off and generally lessen the quality of his life.

Between them, they've got more blackmail material on him than anyone could hope for. The fact that Ray lost his virginity freakishly late and that Nate sometimes talks in his sleep are worthless compared to what they know about him. (If they ever get together with his mother, Brad'll be royally fucked.) They team up to annoy him or win arguments, and those two together could convince a priest to steal from the church and buy hookers and blow with the cash. Not that Nate ever would, but still. He'd be an excellent lawyer if he weren't so honest.

Ray will invite himself over on the basis of having a video game and trash-talking marathon with Brad, but after they've played Call of Duty and are about to move on to Grand Theft Auto, he'll wander off to find Nate.

Normally Brad will play through a level or two by himself, just to have a break from Ray, but the game's less fun if he's not competing. He'll find them in the kitchen, talking very intently about politics or religion or philosophy. Nate, at least, has the decency to blush and apologize; Ray just keeps going, occasionally taking a puff from his cigarette.

"Don't smoke in my house, Ray," Brad says. It goes ignored, of course, and Ray blows a perfect ring of smoke in Brad's face.

"Ray," Nate says. He sounds chiding but gentle. "Remember the rule about acting like an adult when we're having adult conversations?"

Ray grumbles something under his breath, but stubs the cigarette out. "Jesus Christ, Brad, are you this pussy- whipped for your bleeding-heart, tax-hiking ass-bandit boyfriend?"

Brad doesn't bother complimenting Ray on his insults. No need to inflate his already huge ego. "The better question would be why you were even thinking about Nate's ass."

"Obviously because I want a threesome with you guys. Have you _seen_ his mouth?" Brad nearly coughs up a lung while Ray adds, "Just kidding. Mostly."

It's like Brad said: a terrible, _terrible_ sitcom.

5.

Nate loves him. Brad's suspected Nate's had strong feelings for him since Iraq, but they've never been explicit with words. Mostly because Brad's never liked talking about his feelings and is still wary of being burned again, so Nate, apparently, had decided to be extra-considerate and just not talk about their relationship at all.

Which was fine with Brad, at first. But even he knows that sometimes, all the action in the world can't take the place of words. So he'd started to be more vocal about things without saying the three they'd agreed not to.

They've had plenty of fights, and a fair number of those have been about Brad being emotionally stunted or Nate needing validation about one thing or another. They both hedge around saying what they feel because that's how they've always done it. The familiar SOP in the familiar AO.

 _But this isn't the Marines,_ Nate's been all too eager to point out on multiple occasions. I know she fucked you over, but she's not worth it. _You can't base your self-worth on what Charlotte said_ years _ago._

So Brad tries to show Nate how he feels; it's not like Nate doesn't do the same every day, without bringing up the lack of discussion. He pushes Brad to his limits, he makes sure Brad balances out his diet with healthy food, and when Brad asks, he'll even put aside the work he took home so they can curl up on the couch and watch a movie.

He finally says _I love you_ when he thinks Nate needs it most—on the way to his favorite aunt's funeral. Brad shifts the steering wheel to just his left hand and puts the other on Nate's knee. Nate's eyes are red, bright with tears that are threatening to spill over.

"Thank you," Nate mouths, touching Brad's hair, the ribbons on his coat.


End file.
